As early as October 2023, alongside the growing sweeping killing in the Gaza Strip, many Jewish Israelis dealt intensely with the question “Have they condemned the massacre?” aimed at Gazans, and “if they have not condemned it” this is a moral and existential duty to slaughter them. A “moral” duty whose justification has eventually turned into the popular saying “there are no persons uninvolved”. Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well, were examined. The claim that they did not condemn the Hamas served as an excuse to remain silent about their harassment and arrest of many, ignoring the fact that they - Palestinian citizens of Israel – are a part of the Palestinian people being slaughtered, including members of their own families.
As I have said then - the moment the Jewish state (since October 8, 2023) began to use the disaster as a ground for annihilation, erasure and expulsion of a people and the theft of its land – any condemnation of it has served to fortify support for the Gazan genocide. After all, it is not the condemnation of this or another deed but rather an excuse to do anything to inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and Palestinians on the whole.
Namely, even if we begin to regard October 2023 as Jewish Israelis are still doing, as the starting point :
Demanding Palestinian citizens of Israel to condemn is a demand to agree to the annihilation of their people and families and the theft of their land.
Demanding each and every one of us to condemn is a demand to justify and approve of the annihilation of the Palestinian people and theft of its land.
This is true, as well, regarding the discussion of ‘Hamas cruelty’ – of which Gazans must be saved. this discussion has caused their sweeping genocide and the Israeli argument about the need to ‘collapse’ Hamas or somehow change the regime has been the excuse for that same slaughter, erasure and expulsion of the Palestinian people and theft of its land.
Therefore, I refuse to discuss Hamas – it is a matter for the people of the Gaza Strip, and they have not asked our help to do so. If we speak of Israel’s right to defend itself – the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves is just as valid and I shan’t get into it here.
I shall only say in conclusion, there are no people uninvolved. We are all involved.
If the fact that in the Jewish state “everyone is army” is NOT an approval of an intense slaughter of all its citizens and its erasure; if the fact that we cannot manage to change our cruel, monstrous regime is NO approval for an intense slaughter of all citizens of the Jewish state, its erasure and theft of its land – then so is it regarding the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people.
The poem below, written in great pain, is a reaction of a different kind, of my veins and soul and heart, that intervene when I see the sights.
Let hearts switch, let us live together and grow together and be involved in each other’s lives, without the need for Jewish Supremacy that preserves a Jewish state at all costs.
Inshallah.
There are no uninvolved
There are no uninvolved in Gaza,
for all the bodies have become involved,
and one could not see where
are the child’s hands, which its tiny feet
dwelled by its mother’s body but its head
and other parts travelled far, to look
for brethren to whom they would stick to
under the big stones that threaten to erase
and smash even the heart that wandered with them.
The father’s hands who returned to the killing fields
now dig with burned fingers.
He could not – on the bombing day –
put out the fire of the tent. Only the burns
secreting pus, having no medication, remained
as a last memory of those, whose bones
he now rummages in ashes to find
which he could identify, bury, pray
for their souls, before the mute drones
and noisy airplanes are back
and he would be forced to run again
for his life.
Only his soul
remains with him.
Ruti Lavi is an activist, teacher, poet, painter, and a human being
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